Trump ‘surrogates’ pack courthouse to bypass his gag order

Donald Trump could face jail time or pay thousands of dollars in fines if he continues to violate a silence order preventing him from publicly attacking witnesses and the jury in his secret money trial in Manhattan.

Instead, Republican members of Congress and GOP officials responded to his danger signals and traveled to New York, where they can be threatened from the courtroom or just outside its doors.

Jurors and witnesses testifying against the accused former president now enter a room where a growing number of lawmakers and influential Trump allies can confront them and say whatever they want, in person and online.

But the order of silence during the trial expressly prohibits Mr. Trump from “making, or directing others to make, public statements” about witnesses, jurors and other parties in the case, and the former president’s allies are now echoing his grievances and attacks.

House Speaker Mike Johnson — the nation’s highest-ranking Republican — joined a fleet of Trump allies in Manhattan on Tuesday, an extraordinary moment in American politics that turned the GOP and its presidential candidate squarely against the judicial system.

Johnson did not enter the courtroom on Tuesday, but he held a news conference across the street from the courthouse to attack the man on the witness stand: Michael Cohen, whose key testimony linked Trump to the fraudulent scheme underlying his criminal charges.

“This is a man who is clearly on a mission of personal vengeance,” Johnson said. “No one should believe a word he says.”

Something like that coming from Trump could land him in jail for contempt. But now Trump has his “surrogates,” the accused Trump told reporters in the courthouse hallway on Tuesday.

“And they speak very beautifully.”

On Monday, Republican senators J.D. Vance and Tommy Tuberville joined Trump in court.

The next day, Republican congressmen Byron Donalds and Cory Mills and former GOP presidential candidates Vivek Ramaswamy and Doug Burgum were in attendance. Trump’s son, Eric Trump, and his wife, Lara Trump, now co-chair of the Republican National Committee, were also present.

On Monday, Vance made Trump’s intentions clear: His allies are there to say what Trump “cannot say, which is a disgrace,” he told reporters on Monday.

Mr. Tuberville was even more emphatic. He told Newsmax that he went to trial to “overcome a gag order.”

He even attacked the jury pool in his remarks to reporters in a hallway just steps from where a random group of Manhattan residents had gathered to hear the case.

“I am disappointed to see American citizens – supposedly American citizens – in this courtroom,” he said Monday.

At a press conference outside the courthouse on Tuesday, Ramaswamy ridiculed “fourth-class prosecutors and a fifth-class lawyer in the dock.”

And one by one, Trump’s allies attacked the judge’s daughter as if they were all pulling from the same script – claims that if they had come from Trump’s Truth Social or from his mouth, they would have earned him harsh sanctions or prison time.

“Amidst the atrocities that have taken place here, a judge’s daughter is making millions of dollars online fundraising for Democrats,” Johnson said.

“The judge’s daughter is also a fundraiser herself for people like Adam Schiff and the Biden administration,” Mills said.

“His daughter raises money for Democrats,” Mr. Donalds said. “And all the emails asking for funds are about this lawsuit that his daughter is involved in. … It’s a travesty of justice.”

Mr Ramaswamy demanded an accounting of the “millions of dollars she spent as a Democratic activist”.

Senator Rick Scott and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton also joined the former president in court. Like Mr. Trump, his allies have made baseless claims that the trial is a Democratic-led plot to crush Mr. Trump’s chances of winning the 2024 presidential election under President Joe Biden.

But their court appearance this week coincided with key testimony in the case, making the news conferences and hallway distractions even more obvious.

In more than seven hours of testimony delivered over seven days, Cohen explained how Mr. Trump — furious and terrified at the prospect of incriminating stories from women that could derail his 2016 campaign — ordered him to pay adult film star Stormy Daniels hush money to cover up her story of having sex with Mr. Trump, then filed fake invoices to disguise the reimbursements as mere “legal fees.”

Dozens of New Yorkers line up before sunrise, hoping to secure one of the few seats in the 15th-floor courtroom. Government-issued press badges allow journalists to use laptops and phones in court, but members of the public are forced to hide their devices.

But if you are a Republican elected official or a prominent GOP figure in Mr. Trump’s entourage, you can post on social media from just a few feet away from the former president, his lawyers, the judge and the jury. You can skip the huge early morning lines and go straight to the 15th floor

Trump’s lawyer, Alina Habba, who is not representing him in the case, as well as Eric Trump and Ramaswamy routinely pulled out their phones during Tuesday’s trial. Mr. Vance appeared to be posting from the inside on Monday, moments after Mr. Cohen appeared to be testifying. “The president is expected to sit here for six weeks to hear from the Michael Cohen of the world,” he wrote.